I believe in…Theology
It was the famed American cynic H. L. Menken who defined theology as an “explanation of the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.” Theology itself was the source of the Latin phrase ‘odium theologicum’ as a description of the vicious disputations seen among mediaeval divines. Those outside the church are frequently negative about theology — if one doesn’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t suppose one will see the interest and value of learning about him. Sadly, it is also the case that within some Christian circles, theology is distrusted or maligned.
One angle is that theology is a tool of exclusion and division; that theology is used to define ‘our’ position, and woe betide all who disagree. Another angle is that theology is, quite bluntly, a distraction, drawing our focus from the experience of God which we can have right now — and who would exchange that for boring old theology?
There are other angles, too — one needn’t look far to hear (for instance) people decrying the destruction of mystery, replacing it with formulaic doctrine, or again, that theology is doomed to failure, and attempt to describe the indescribable, a waste of time and effort.
At its core, however, good theology (that is scriptural theology correctly applied) is none of these. The word ‘theology’ comes from two Greek words: θεòς (theos) meaning God, and -λογια (-logia) meaning study or learning. When we do theology, we are learning about God!
And it is for this reason that I hope all Christians are theologians. Paul, writing in his letter to the church in Colossi, urges them to “grow in the knowledge of God” (1 Col 1:9–10).
Nor is theology uniquely a New Testament priority. In Deuteronomy, God gives the Israelites a theological statement — “hear, O Israel, the LORD, the LORD our God is one” — and then tells them to keep his commands upon their hearts, to impress them upon their children, to talk about them when sitting at home and walking along the road (Deut 6:4–9)
So, God wants us to learn about him — but how then do we do so?
The classic answers can be broken up into four groups: those that rely on reason, those that rely on tradition and history, those that rely on the Bible, and those that rely on personal experience. However, I should like to provide evidence that all four point to Jesus Christ as the source and focus of God’s self-revelation.
Church history shows us that serious theologians have always taken Jesus Christ as God’s definitive revelation of himself to us. Indeed, it is only rational that God, who transcends all knowledge and understanding, will only be understood if he makes himself understood; how better to be understood than as a human being? The experience of millions throughout history has been that Jesus of Nazareth has shown them who God is. But of course, on its own, none of this is enough. The reason we believe that Jesus is God’s revelation of himself is that Jesus himself claimed that he is the only way to know the Father (John 14:9).
And how, then, do we get to know Jesus? Again, he himself gives us the answer. On the road to Emmaus, He explained to the couple he met that the contemporary Scriptures point to him (Luke 24:27 cf John 5:39). He frequently quoted the Old Testament and applied it to himself in ways unimaginable to the Jewish mindset of the day. And so, too, the Scriptures of our day — both Old Testament and New — explain Jesus and his work to us.
In sum, we know God principally by his revelation in Jesus Christ. We meet Jesus and understand him primarily through the Bible. We use reason and study to understand what the Bible says. Historical theology — church history and tradition — is, at its best, and ever growing collation of the results of that study. Personal experience of it all makes the theological enterprise apply to the individual’s life.
Why then do we encounter such negative attitudes towards such an amazing privilege — that of getting to know God? An old Scottish proverb has it that, “confession is good for the soul.” So be it.
We must all confess that we can turn minor doctrines into major shibboleths — mispronounce on these and we run the unfortunate speaker through with a dogmatic broadsword. Yet good theology will not let itself be used for the sole purpose of declaring who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out’.
Paul writes to the Corinthian church and reminds them of the gospel on which they took their stand (1 Cor 15:1–8) — his formulation is believed to have been an early confession of faith. Paul’s letter to the church of Ephesus says that God’s household (which is a phrase Paul uses here and elsewhere (1 Tim 3:15) for the church) is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone (Eph 2:20). Good theology builds up!
We must also confess that all too often, we can let our understanding get in the way of our personal experience of the realities theology seeks to describe. But good theology should never get in the way of the realities.
If you will permit a personal note, I have sometimes found myself in the position of believing myself to ‘understand’ grace, only to discover I had failed to ‘get’ it. For sure, I was — and am — saved by grace, but my experience of that grace had dried up; I was perilously close to a theoretical understanding of grace but with little or no practical application of grace. And then a series of excellent sermons, packed with sound theology on grace, refreshes my personal understanding of the grace I had almost forgotten. That is good theology, far better than mine, and it expects a personal response.
Good theology will help us understand, but good theology should also make us desire to know!
So, good theology builds up; good theology explains experience; good theology expects experience. Beyond all else, good theology is sanctioned by God himself as one of the ways we can get to know him, a means by which we can “love the Lord with all our…mind” (Luke 10:27). Surely the highest end to which our God-given minds can be put is to learn about their Creator? So let’s do that, shall we?